I had no idea. “Why aren’t you in another one?”
“We’re short of space, Mel. No others were available.”
Vi delivers her parting shot, then walks off carrying the cushion, presumably to put it away until tonight, while I’m still trying to process the fact Pyro’s been sleeping uncomfortably while I’ve taken his bed.
“No, Mel. Before you even think it, I’m not going to let you swap places. I’m quite comfortable now I’ve got myself sorted. You’re a pregnant woman and need a bed.”
I really don’t know what to say.
I’m quiet on the short journey to the doctor’s, realising how much the man beside me is doing for my comfort and never complaining. Well, not to me. Vi had known he was suffering from a stiff neck.
As if he knows I’m still worrying, after he parks the car, his hand touches my chin and turns my head. “Darlin’, I used to be in the Army. I’ve had far worse places to lay my head. Believe me, a soft couch and a pillow is a luxury compared to some of the places I’ve slept. There’s nothing you can say which will change the situation.”
“Thank you?” I offer, as a question. The words seeming inadequate as they leave my mouth.
“That’ll do,” he responds, simply. Then, “Ready to do this?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Pyro
I hadn’t intended to accompany Mel to the OB/GYN today. In my head, it was women’s shit, and Violet seemed the obvious choice as her companion. It hadn’t been until I’d overheard the women talking after Mel had had an early night and gone to bed the previous evening and heard shit which had changed my mind.
“Poor girl,” Mo had said. “Skull should be here with her. Hell was amazing with me. He came to every appointment right from the start.”
“I know what she’s going through,” said Violet. “I had to go by myself. I felt so alone, even though Vicky was with me. Happy expectant couples all around me, and there I was, without a man.”
“Pal would want to be with me.” Jay laughed. “I wouldn’t be able to keep him away.”
I’d cursed Skull in my head. What the fuck is the man doing leaving her to cope all alone? Okay, so he doesn’t know she’s pregnant, but she could be going through anything as far as he knows. Not the least worrying and missing him. Another sign, surely, that the man has to be dead. Why else would he stay away from his woman, let alone his club?
Skull should be there to support her at her appointments, to share every step of the pregnancy with her. If he can’t be, then I’ll have to step up instead.
Whoa. Hold on there. Why me?
I have no answer for my own question, yet it already seems I’m already invested in Mel having a baby. It was me who was there and who read the positive sign on that pregnancy test. Seems by doing so, I’ve become unwittingly involved. She might not be having my baby, but I’ll give her the support she needs until her man returns. Though that seems to be increasingly unlikely.
I wish she hadn’t learned I’d not only given up my bed for her, but that I’d had no place other than the clubroom to sleep instead. I've gotten used to the couch, and that pillow properly positioned does indeed help my neck.
Though Skull will undoubtedly be with us today—he’s the baby’s father after all and she won’t be able to forget—I didn’t want to raise his spectre in a negative way. Therefore, I’d refrained from telling her there will probably be more space in the clubhouse after church tonight. As nothing has happened, lockdown is bound to be lifted. Mel’s not stupid, she’ll realise two options will have been taken off the table. The first being that Skull himself is gunning for the club, which would be good in her eyes, but the other, that an enemy is holding him captive. No longer considering that as a viable possibility is basically admitting he is dead.
I hadn’t thought it through, I realise, as we sit in the waiting room along with an assortment of women in various stages of pregnancy, many with their partners beside them. It’s not being here that bothers me, but the form I’m asked to fill in. They think I’m the father and want my medical history. I put it aside, raging again that there are things we don’t know. Has Skull got any genetic issues that might have a bearing on the baby’s health? There’s no way of knowing.
Mel’s biting the tip of the pen as she completes her own information.
Discreetly, while waiting, I study the room’s other occupants. Noting one man looks excited, another bored, and the last like they’d rather be elsewhere. The women, though… There’s one who seems likely to drop any day now, and I wonder if Mel will have the same glow on her face when she gets to that point. Fuck, but she’ll look beautiful when the baby starts growing, I fucking know she will. For a moment I wish her baby was mine, and like the proud excited father, I could take personal pleasure in today. But it’s not. I’m not even her partner. I’m lucky. A woman and baby would tie me down.
When our time comes, we’re shown into a room where we wait for the doctor.
It’s not long before she enters. “Right, now, Melissa, isn’t it?” When Mel nods, the doctor looks at me and frowns. “You didn’t fill in your health information.”
“I’m not the father,” I say fast. “He’s unable to be here, so I’ve come in his place.”
“You okay with that, Melissa?” The doctor’s eyebrow is arched.
“Yes,” Mel says positively, with a quick grateful glance my way.
“You think you’re about six weeks?”
When Mel replies in the affirmative, the doctor commences a complete check-up, sending me out of the room while she performs certain examinations, but I’m there when her blood pressure is taken and a sample of blood. Mel squeezes my hand tightly, and I get the impression she doesn’t like needles.
Mel goes through her health, mentioning her concern about her weight and whether it would affect her carrying a healthy baby. The doctor agrees she’s got a high BMI score—whatever that fucking is, and that she should watch what she eats. Mel looks beautiful to me. Rounded and shapely, in my eyes exactly how a woman should look. I glare at the doctor.
She then talks to us both about what to expect in pregnancy. I learn her tits are already sore and will increase in size. Oh baby, I could ease that pain with my hands and lips. Then mentally slap myself around the head before I get a hard dick in a very inappropriate place.
The doc thinks it’s too early for a sonogram, and as Mel’s certain of the timing of her last period estimates a delivery date. As she does Mel turns to glance at me, and I can see a mixture of fear and excitement on her face. Being given a date has just made it real for her.
“When can we see it? And when can we learn whether it’s a boy or a girl?” It’s me that asks that question.
Mel raises her eyebrow, but she grins. I shrug. Can’t help but get involved when I’m sitting here with her. Some of her excitement must be contagious.
The doc answers me, “After sixteen weeks we should be able to tell. We can schedule that in. If there are any problems, we might have a look sooner. We’ll schedule your next appointment for a month’s time. If anything comes back from your blood work that we need to discuss, then I’ll be in touch. Oh, and if you can get the health information from the father, that will be useful.”
My face tightens as the excitement on Mel’s face disappears.
She’s still down as we walk back across the parking lot.
“I wish Skull was here. I’m so glad you were, Pyro, but there’s so much I don’t know about him. I don’t know whether there’s anything in his medical history I should know about. What if there is, and it harms the baby?”
I know I’m starting to do this more often, but it just seems natural to pull her into my arms and to cradle her head against my chest. “Don’t worry about things that might not exist. Just focus on doing the best that you can.”
“I hate this,” she sobs. “I should be happy I’m having a baby. I am, but I want Skull to be with me.”
Suddenly she cries out, “He’s dead, isn’t he, Pyro? I’m never going to see him again.”
What do I do? Do I hold out false hope? Do I tell her what my thoughts really are? Can I lie? No, I can’t. “Mel, I’m so fuckin’ sorry, but I think he is. There’s no other explanation why he wouldn’t have come back to you. I don’t know where it could have happened, I don’t know how, who—or even if anyone else was involved—but I’m certain he’d have come back if he could.”
People come and go around us, but I ignore the looks. Let them think what they like. If Mel needs to cry out her anguish in a hospital parking lot, she’s allowed to.
Eventually her tears dry. On the drive back to the compound the odd sob sounds, but she’s slowly pulling herself together. I’m not sure if I handled the situation rightly or wrongly, but Mel’s distress was caused by her beginning to accept she’ll never again see her man. In my view, to allow her to keep hoping, to give her false platitudes after she’d come to that realisation herself, didn’t sit well with me.
Skull’s gone. Deep down in my bones, I know it.
Life has to go on. Particularly that special bundle of cells in her stomach on which Mel’s currently resting her hands.
Taking my right hand off the steering wheel, I place it on hers. “Skull still lives on, Mel. You’re carrying part of him. You can keep him alive in your child and in your mind.”
“I know,” she replies, her voice quiet and low. “I’d never met a man like Skull before, Pyro. He truly ignored our age difference. It didn’t matter to him, and he saw past my exterior to the woman inside. No one’s ever loved me for me before.”
“You don’t want to hear this now darlin’, I know. But when you’re ready, there’ll be someone else for you.”
“Will there?” she snaps. “There never was before. No one wants the fat woman, and a fat woman with a child?”
I pull over to the, slam the car into park and turn on her. “Shut that shit up now, woman. You are not fuckin’ fat. You’ve got curves in all the right places. Those men who couldn’t see how beautiful you are? Fuckin’ blind motherfuckers.”
“You heard the doctor…”
“I heard her say you’re to eat a healthy diet which she’d say to any fuckin’ expectant mother. You are not fat, Mel. You’re so fuckin’ perfect…” I stop before I tell her she’s exactly the kind of woman I want. I stop before I allow myself to even think it. This dilemma is fucking with my head. She’s another member’s old lady. Whether he’s living or no longer breathing, she’s his. If I let myself continue to contemplate in the direction I’m going, I’ll start doing the unthinkable, wishing a brother was dead.
She’s looking at me strangely as I put the car back into drive and pull away.
We say nothing more until we reach the compound, and I tell her I’ve got to get back to work. It isn’t a lie or excuse, but I’m using it as one. I need space, before I say something I might later regret, or, inadvertently, hurt her.
Some hours later I walk into church. Having lost myself in fixing an exhaust on a bike that didn’t want to be fixed, having to concentrate on nuts which didn’t want to be turned and screws that didn’t want to be screwed into the right place, I arrive almost to the dot of when the meeting should start. I’m the last one to take my place.
“Lockdown?” Hell queries before Demon can begin the meeting.
Demon seems to ignore him as he doesn’t immediately leap to answer. Instead, in my view, he starts in the right place.
“First item on the agenda, any news about Skull?”
From all around come shakes of heads. No one has seen or heard from him, and none of our searches have borne fruit.
“He’s dead.” Rusty shakes his head sadly. “No other explanation.”
“We’ve had no word from anyone. No reason for him to have been taken, and no reason for him to have left. Makes sense he was worried about the situation with his ol’ lady and wanted to get things straight in his head. He must have known it would be soon she’d take the pregnancy test, maybe he wanted to get himself in a space where he could trust himself to have the right reaction. Whatever the result.”
I nod at Thunder, how he’s put things together sounds right.
The sergeant-at-arms continues, “He could have been mentally working things through, lost concentration as he rode. That makes more fuckin’ sense than anything else. He wanted revenge? We’d have known about it by now, but there’s been no threat to the club. Someone else out to get him? Unless it was personal shit from outside the club we’d have heard, and if it was personal, we’d have to suppose the result is the same and he’s dead.”
“That he hasn’t been found yet, doesn’t mean he won’t be eventually,” Beef agrees. “I think we should call off the search parties. We don’t know the direction he went. Hate to say this, but even if we’re on the right road, we could be passing straight by him. If he came off his bike and was injured, trapped, after two-and-a-half weeks, he has to be dead.”
Cad nods slowly. “He’s still not accessed his money. Man needs dollars to live. Much as I hate to say it, we won’t see Skull again.”
Beef takes the floor back. “We don’t normally deal with the cops, but in this instance, Prez thought we needed to. We reported him missing.”
Much as I don’t like involving the authorities, Skull wasn’t doing anything for the club, and from what I know of him, wouldn’t have been carrying drugs on his own time. Cops find him, at least we’ll know. Though they’ll probably be looking for a body.
“Doubt they’ll do much.”
I tilt my head toward Lizard. I, too, don’t have much faith in them putting themselves out for a member of a biker club.
“Nah,” Thunder clearly agrees.
Prez is taking it all in, you can see by the focused way he watches each speaker. When it seems brothers have said all there is to say, he pinches the bridge of his nose, then says in a tired voice, “I tend to agree with Cad, that we won’t see our brother again. I can’t see how the club could be in danger, so lockdown is raised.” Hell breathes out an audible sigh of relief, but Demon continues, “We still need to be vigilant, but people can go home to their own beds.”
“What about Mel?”
“Goes without saying, Ro. She’s welcome to stay here or go home. Whatever she feels most comfortable doing. We’d support her in any event, but especially so seeing as she’s carrying our lost brother’s baby.”
“At least you won’t be getting any more stiff necks.” Mace grins at me.
“Have to say, Ro. I thought you’d be sharing your bed with her by now.”
What the fuck? I turn to glare at Ink, who shrugs.
“You are getting pretty close to her,” Lizard backs him up. “What’s all this about you going to her doctor’s appointment with her?”
I bang my hands on the table. “She needs someone. Skull’s gone. I’m just stepping up for a brother.”
“Are there death benefits like prison ones?” Judge asks.
“You’ll get a fuckin’ death benefit if you carry on,” I warn him. “You’ll get dead.”
“Nah, I think it’s a good question,” Hellfire puts in. “If Skull was in prison, someone could step up and see to his woman’s needs. And pregnant women can certainly have them, if you know what I mean.”
Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard pregnancy hormones can make a woman horny. But that’s an old wives’ tale, isn’t it? Though Hell might know what he’s talking about, Mo’s had three kids.
Are they saying they’d give me the go ahead to fuck her? My dick perks up at the thought.
Then I come back to my senses and snarl, “Fuckin’ woman’s got to grieve the death of her man. She doesn’t just have to wait out his absence, he’s never coming back. Last thing she wants is another man pawing at her.” It hits me in a flash. I might not mind being a substitute for Skull when I’m taking her to the doctor, but I�
��ll be no man’s substitute in bed. When I finally lie with her, it will be because she wants me to be there. Not someone else instead. When? Christ. The question should be if, if it arises at all. What the fuck’s going on in my head?
“It was just a thought,” says an unrepentant Ink.
Prez unsuccessfully tries to hide his grin before stating, “Moving on to other business…”
Chapter Eighteen
Melissa
As much as I didn’t want to, I knew living in limbo wasn’t doing me, and by association, the baby, any good. I couldn’t just go on half-hoping half-worrying, I had to come down on one side of the fence.
If Skull had been alive and he was the man I thought he was, he’d have moved heaven and earth to come back to me. He hadn’t, so he has to be dead. I torture myself at the thought of him dying alone and hurting, and hope it was quick. Not knowing how the life of my man ended is difficult to accept, but I need to come to terms that he’s gone, and I’ll be heading on through life alone.
Though I’d told Pyro outside of the hospital that I knew he was dead, a small kernel of hope remained inside me, until later that same night when it was pronounced that lockdown was over.
There’s a general feeling of relief, a relaxation of tension, but to me it seemed like the last nail was being hammered into a coffin. The club had given up on him, and now I must too. I have to be realistic. Any last hopes I’ve been harbouring of having my man back at my side crumble into dust.
While her mother-in-law had been ecstatic, and has already left with Hellfire, Violet understands the decision has a different impact on me.
“You should stay here,” she encourages.
“I don’t know what I want to do, Vi. He’s gone, and somehow, I’ve got to accept it. I just don’t know how.” I’ve cried enough tears today, and I don’t want to shed more. All of my misery can’t be good for the baby. “If I stay here, I’m reminded of him every day. If I go home…” I’ll be reminded of him there. He was living with me. His clothes will still be hung in my wardrobe, his manly stuff in the bathroom.
Satan’s Devils MC -Colorado Box Set: Books 4-6 Page 15
